Post by Linyü on Mar 8, 2020 20:50:59 GMT -6

He was born in the capital. There had been a party held in his honor the week after his birth, and at his hundred day ceremony, one of the ministers had visited in person to congratulate his father on the good health of his firstborn son. His sister was born three years later, to much less pomp and circumstance, but nevertheless a great deal of private joy and celebration. He remembered the event itself a little: staring into dark, half-opened eyes, a tiny thing swathed in red blankets.

“You’re a big brother now,” his mother had said. He couldn’t remember her face anymore, but he remembered her voice, the gentle touch of her hand upon his head. “You have to look out for her, alright?”

His childhood was a series of warm impressions: the booming laughter of his father; the sweet taste of peaches in the summer; running by the riverbank in the fall with kites streaming behind him; and through it all, his sister with him, always, always.

Post by Linyü on Mar 8, 2020 20:52:08 GMT -6

His sister, round-faced and dark-haired. Small for her age. His sister, who was afraid of the dark, of bugs, of falling; his sister who loved rabbits and red bean buns; who sang off tune to the children’s songs they learned in school.

His sister, who was eight when the blond man came for their family.

Memory was a funny thing. His childhood was a series of warm impressions, barely remembered and bereft of detail, but he could recall with perfect clarity the night it came to an end.

It had been a warm night in summer. The windows were open in their parents’ bedroom, the silk curtains fluttering, moonlight spilling stark white onto the hardwood floor. Everything else was untouched: the paintings on the walls, the great drawers with their heavy wooden doors; their father’s papers on the writing desk; the paints and perfumes on their mother’s dresser.

Post by Linyü on Mar 8, 2020 20:52:23 GMT -6

The bodies on the floor were incongruous, a detail that didn’t fit with the rest of the scene. The blond man standing over them, tugging at his gloves, might have been a late night guest his parents had been entertaining.

“Mother,” he’d said. His mother, sprawled gracelessly on the ground with her long hair fallen messily over her face, didn’t stir. “Mother. Father.” He ran to them, fell to his knees beside them, placed a hand on father’s shoulder.

“My,” said the blond man, in Xin, with an accent he couldn’t place. “What’s this?”

He looked up into the man’s face, into pale grey eyes. The man smiled at him. “Ah, yes. The son. Well, this saves me the trouble of tracking you down.”

Comprehension seemed oceans away. He knew--- it was impossible not to know. But it was impossible, too, that this might be happening. His mind would not follow the clues to their conclusion, and he knelt there, unmoving, as though he were in a trance.

Post by Linyü on Mar 8, 2020 20:52:38 GMT -6

And then, the sound of footsteps.

His sister.

“No!” he said. “Get away!”

“Brother?”

She stood in the doorway in a nightgown, one hand clutching at the hem of it, her hair in sleepy disarray. She rubbed at her eyes, oblivious for a moment to the scene before her. And then he saw her take it in, saw the shock on her face, a mirror of his own.

Saw her drawing in a sharp breath to scream.

She didn’t get the chance. The blond man’s hand closed over her mouth before either of them could react. “Let’s not be hasty now,” the man said, smiling at her, and then at him in turn. “You want to live, don’t you? It’d be a pity to send you after your parents so soon.” The man’s gaze drifted down. “Poor souls. It’s nothing personal, you understand. The will of the ministers is a fickle thing.”

Post by Linyü on Mar 8, 2020 20:52:59 GMT -6

In the memory, the blond man’s words were clear, each one cutting like the cold intrusion of a blade. But there, in that room, with his sister held hostage, it felt as though he were underwater. Everything was terrible, liquid-slow. Get up, he thought to himself, but his hands shook and his legs were limp with weakness.

A bird flew in then, through the open window, alighting on the sill. Beady golden eyes stared down at them, and a voice unfurled inside his head. {They’re young enough.} The bird inclined its head. {You’ll come with us quietly, won’t you?}

There was a dull, sick thump behind him; when he turned to look, the blond man was holding his sister’s prone form by the waist, bent across the arm as though she were no more than an evening coat. He scrambled to his feet, the beginnings of a scream in his throat, his hands outstretched to do something--- anything---

Post by Linyü on Mar 8, 2020 20:53:12 GMT -6

He remembered falling, remembered the pulsing ache in his body as his vision went dark.

When he woke, it was to a bare room, furnished only with a desk and two chairs. He was tied to one, and in the other sat an old, wizened man. “Good of you to join us,” said the man, who did not smile. “You are old enough to be reasoned with, I think. I have a proposal for you, and I suggest you think about your options very carefully, young man.”

----

Days bled into weeks bled into months, and he broke, and broke, and broke again. When the sessions ended, after twelve hours or eighteen or forty-eight, he tumbled into the single small cot he shared with his sister--- the one concession they made for him, when he had begged the old man on his knees, still tied to his chair in that empty room, and promised anything he could think of. "Keep us together," he'd said, his words little more than prayer. "Please. Whatever you want me to do, I'll do it."

Post by Linyü on Mar 8, 2020 20:54:43 GMT -6

He had thought, then, that if he lost her here he would never find her again. And then they would be alone. Or he would. None of it had seemed real at the time but even in the fog of shock, he had sensed somehow that if he could do anything it had to be now, now, now.

"Will you? And will you tell me everything you know? A clever boy like you must have an inkling of his father's dealings," said the old man.

Feverishly, he nodded. He scrambled to recall anything that might be of use, snatches of half remembered conversations, men whose names and faces were only indistinct impressions. "A minister," he said. "The one with the four-fingered hand. Father talked to him about--- about trade deals, about unrest in the north." The wizened man did not speak, only waited. "Or--- Or mother's friend, Madam Yun, her husband---"

Post by Linyü on Mar 8, 2020 20:55:45 GMT -6

The man laughed. Something he had said had been pleasing, maybe even valuable. He felt hope rising sick and heady in his chest, nearly nauseous with it, only for the man to steeple fingers together, staring down at him once more. "How easily you betray your own family. Really, children can be terrifying." The old man inspected something stuck beneath one thick yellowed fingernail, dug it out with the tip of a blade. "Do not show your hand too soon, child. There is nothing to be gained from giving away your own weakness."

Cold dread settled into his bones. This was a test, and he had failed. "Please, I'll do anything---"

"Oh, I know you will," said the old man. "And for now, you'll sign here." Gnarled hands pressed forward a sheaf of papers on the desk. "As for your request, we'll take it under consideration, so long as you're true to your word. We do so like obedient children."

Post by Linyü on Mar 8, 2020 20:55:56 GMT -6

He was untied, his thumbs pressed to ink and then to paper. His limbs were boneless, limp from too long held in their restraints. He couldn't have resisted if he wanted to. The words on the page were blurry, though he knew, even then, that the words hardly mattered. He had signed his life away, and to quibble over the terms would be as holding a leaf to ward off the monsoon rain.

His sister, he learned later, must have brokered a similar deal. He didn’t ask her, and she never asked him either. But by then the moments they had together were snatched between the grueling regimen set to them by their new handlers; even eating and bathing were measured in economies of time, and the punishments for tarrying were strict and terrible enough that he hadn’t tried more than once. And they were too exhausted, too numb, too stricken to find the words. At least, he was, after a while.

Post by Linyü on Mar 8, 2020 20:56:34 GMT -6

Eventually, it became habit, just like it became habit to jump at the trainers’ call, to move silently through the city, to feel the steady weight of a knife in his hands and sink it into a dummy’s gut. They were ghosts that wandered the halls and rooftops and backstreets, shadows of each other’s shadows, and a shadow had no words, no memories, no feelings.

He was eleven when they took his name from him, but it wasn’t until he was thirteen that he became San. The graduation was unceremonious; a handler walked him from the room where he had performed the last of his exams to a different chamber in the labyrinthine underground warrens that housed the Watchful Ones. Inside were four figures, all half in shadow. The human ones covered their faces, while the cat watched them with a measured green gaze.

Post by Linyü on Mar 8, 2020 20:57:13 GMT -6

The shortest of the figures gave her assessment in a low, gruff voice, roughened with smoking or shouting or both. The handler ignored her, and made the requisite introductions in a curt, clipped voice. “You have joined the Ninth Unit. Your associates are Hachi, Nana, Juu, and Roku.” The handler pointed at each in turn. The short one who had spoken out was Nana; the cat was Roku. None acknowledged their names, watching motionlessly from their places in the dark of the room.

“This is San and Shi. Sort yourselves out. The assignment will come in two days’ time, and we expect you to have integrated by then.”

Nana had been the first one to speak, but it was Hachi who took over when the handler left them. Hachi was a tall man, brown-skinned beneath his hat, dark eyes raking them over in the same matter of fact assessment that San had seen so many times in their trainers.

Post by Linyü on Mar 8, 2020 21:12:17 GMT -6

“We’ve had younger,” Hachi decided. “I won’t patronize you by asking whether you know how to use everything in your kit. If they’ve graduated you then you’ve got at least half your wits. Just don’t think about doing anything flashy.”

“Come run with us,” said Juu, a slight woman whose bearing, at least, seemed young. “We can take you for a test drive. You know how to scale a tower, don’t you?”

San glanced at Shi, but she didn’t glance back. “Yes,” Shi said.

“Then let’s go.” It was the cat who had spoken this time. Roku jumped off from his perch and shook himself off. As one, the unit peeled away from wherever they had been standing to follow in his wake. Only Juu looked back, waving San and Shi along, her eyes creased in what must have been a smile beneath her mask.

Post by Linyü on Mar 14, 2020 18:31:48 GMT -6

Ningjing, the great capital of Xin, the Unfallen City, bore its legacy like an old scar: a great wall surrounding what had once been its borders, now only the inner heart of the city, built centuries ago to ward off invaders from the north. As the years passed and Dynasts rose and fell to take the place of their fathers and their fathers’ fathers, as expansion and then peace eroded the need for such measures, the city had spilled outside its once proud barrier, sprawling out like wine from a cracked and broken jar.

Only the towers that studded the wall had remained in use. For messengers, so San had been taught, eons and eons ago. When the city became separated into districts, more towers had been erected, such that no place in the city might go unalerted if, against all odds, crisis struck at the heart of the kingdom once more

Post by Linyü on Mar 14, 2020 18:32:05 GMT -6

A tower for each district. A monitoring point for each unit of the Watchful Ones. San had memorized them all, knew the layout of the city like the maps of creases along his palms. Knew, as they breached the city streets, that they were in the Mercantile District, the Red Tower. Unit Nine.

“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” said Juu, looking up. San followed her gaze. Limned in moonlight, the tower stood alone against the darkened night sky, the challenge of its height answered only by the others of its kind.

Nana grunted. “We won’t catch you if you fall,” she said. With a running jump into a wall, she was up, rough hands heaving her weight over the edge of a rooftop. Hachi sighed, then followed suit, no less nimble despite his larger frame.

A movement at the corner of his eye caught him, and San looked just in time to meet Shi’s gaze before she turned and took her own running jump.

Post by Linyü on Mar 14, 2020 18:33:12 GMT -6

Scrambling, he followed in her wake. A running jump, his foot to the wall, pushing him up so he could grasp a ledge above with an outstretched hand. Onto the roof, then to the next one over, and then scaling a taller building with his hands dug into a crevice. He was light, and the movements became familiar as he settled into the arrhythmic pattern, climbing up and up and up, handhold to foothold to narrow grips along a ledge.

And then he faltered--- too late, realizing the place he had reached for was already occupied, looking up into the sneer on Nana’s face as she scrambled up. The fingers of his other hand were slipping. He scrambled, searching for another handhold, anything to keep him from the fall---

“Got you.” A hand gripped his wrist. Juu, those same upturned eyes smiling down at him from where she balanced atop an upturned eave.

Shoutbox

Morgan: No one knows yet. But I did want to make it clear that the jar itself isn't used for lotine husbandry in any way. c:Jun 5, 2020 4:24:19 GMT -6*

Twilight-Claw: I'm only assuming that it does something similar like a Fungal Beast that infects a Leaf-scatter. (the one with moss and I think it was a pink flower growing on the head.)Jun 5, 2020 4:18:34 GMT -6

Morgan: The lolatic doesn't disappear after one use, and can be reused on the same lotine when it is allowed to 'infect' a lotine- to my knowledge.Jun 5, 2020 1:41:37 GMT -6

Morgan: The only effect/thing that the jar can be used for is to open up into a lolatic. The jar itself has no use in lotine breedings.Jun 5, 2020 1:39:52 GMT -6

Twilight-Claw: and the jar is then gone, if with the creature I am more guessing with this the creature doesn't disappear and it has unlimited use.Jun 5, 2020 0:17:55 GMT -6

Twilight-Claw: Something else I am wondering about with the Lotine breeding is whether one would use the jar the Lolatic comes from in the breeding, or actually the creature itself. I'm assuming with it if its the jar, then it gives people only one shot in a breeding, Jun 5, 2020 0:16:08 GMT -6

Twilight-Claw: Then using it in my rps is definitely just for the sake of rp's and not for anything additional. Jun 5, 2020 0:12:17 GMT -6

Renathan: There's no additional effect for adding a fish to a magical berry in a lotine breeding. Magical Berry is kinda it's own thing. Adding a fish for roleplay value shouldn't hurt, but it has no effect when used on a magical berry lotine breeding.Jun 4, 2020 22:27:14 GMT -6

Twilight-Claw: be just for the sake of rp, and perhaps seeing if it might lent a bigger chance to multiple offspring with unique pattern. X3Jun 4, 2020 15:31:01 GMT -6

Twilight-Claw: I think your right on it being unlimited use yeah, although.. *cough* I only found out a couple hours after I started writing that I had yet to buy the fish in question so used the one you could get for free as a replacement, it still was meant to mostly Jun 4, 2020 15:30:59 GMT -6

Riku: From what I loosely understand about the fish is that it isn't one-use, whereas the berry is. I feel like there wouldn't be any consequence of 'using' the fish...which I'd think just ooc wouldn't be counted for whatever rolls or whatever it is that it usesJun 3, 2020 14:14:30 GMT -6

Twilight-Claw: Thanks for that piece of info Ren! <3 | But would it be allowed for the flavor of the rp if the berry wasn't filling enough for the Lotine? Jun 1, 2020 6:09:21 GMT -6*

Renathan: There is no need to double up on a fish and a magical berry (doesn't change the effect of the berry at all) in a lotine breeding.Jun 1, 2020 6:02:21 GMT -6

Twilight-Claw: Does anyone know if it is possible to combine both a magical berry and a fish in a Lotine breeding? Or is you can only choose one of them? (right now writing a Lotine breeding) Jun 1, 2020 5:36:49 GMT -6

Twilight-Claw: I am still interested in trading it for a green drake. Jun 1, 2020 0:31:33 GMT -6